From Egg to Embryo by Self-Organization

by Stuart Pivar

PROMINENT SCIENTISTS REJECT MAINSTREAM GENETICS FOR NEW THEORY OF HOW THE HUMAN BODY IS FORMED

In the foreword to the new book by Stuart Pivar, LIFECODE, From Egg to Embryo by Self-Organization, Darwin scholar Richard Milner directs attention to the recent landmark report (June 14, 2007) in which Human Genome Project Director Francis Collins calls the long-accepted model of genetics “badly flawed.” A week later, the NY Times Science Times reported that scores of scientists on the ENCODE Project concluded that, after fifty years of genetic research, they don’t really understand what genes do, or how they work.

LIFECODE presents an alternative theory of evolution which contends that the embryo is formed by self-organization, as are crystals, rather than by a genetic code subject to natural selection. Accompanying illustrations depict hypothetical construction blueprints for the various body forms.

Biological self-organization has long been a contending alternate theory for the code of life; recent proponents include evolutionary biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Brian Goodwin.

In a review of LIFECODE, Robert Hazen calls the model plausible, worthy of publication and further study. Professor Hazen is a leading NASA Origins of Life scientist at the Carnegie Institute in Washington, DC. Other supporters are Dimitar Sasselov, Director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, evolutionary biologist Brian Goodwin, author of “How the Leopard Changed its Spots.”

The new theory may counter Intelligent Design by providing a more cogent account of evolution than does Darwinian natural selection.